Honda car, truck win top awards

Honda Motor's Ridgeline, the company's first U.S. pickup, won truck of the year Sunday at the North American International Auto Show, and its Civic was named the year's best car.

It was the first time an automaker has captured both titles.

The Ridgeline, which went on sale in early 2005, combines a four-door cab and a pickup bed with the industry's first lockable trunk.

The Civic, Honda's best-selling small car, was revamped in late 2005 with a more powerful four-cylinder engine, improved fuel-economy and a more aerodynamic chassis.

The other two car finalists were the Ford Fusion and the Pontiac Solstice. The other two truck finalists were the Ford Explorer and Nissan Xterra sport-utility vehicles.

The winners were chosen by a group of 49 full-time automotive journalists from the U.S. and Canada. The North American International Auto Show opens to the public Saturday.

Meanwhile Sunday, Detroit police officers, decked out in riot gear with guns and clubs, kept about 500 union protesters one block away from the auto show's media previews at Cobo Center.

The group was protesting big job cuts sought by bankrupt auto-parts supplier Delphi.

$25 billion offer for Guidant formal

Boston Scientific on Sunday formalized its $25 billion offer for rival medical-device maker Guidant, standing by an earlier proposal that aims to scuttle a standing but smaller bid from Johnson & Johnson.

The bid, in line with Boston Scientific's initial one last month, includes a new and related $4.3 billion deal in which the company would sell Guidant's vascular intervention and endovascular businesses to Abbott Laboratories.

Boston Scientific is the largest maker of drug-coated heart stents. The new proposal is aimed at ensuring antitrust approval for its plan to buy Guidant, which has a lucrative pacemaker and defibrillator business.

Johnson & Johnson responded by reaffirming its $21.5 billion bid and touting its rich history and size as selling points to win over Guidant investors.

Rising demand fuels 9-cent jump

Gasoline prices at the pump jumped 9 cents in the past three weeks to an average $2.30 a gallon, Trilby Lundberg said, citing her survey of 7,000 U.S. filling stations.

Prices rose as fuel consumption rebounded, she said. Benchmark crude-oil futures ended last week at $64.21 a barrel in New York, highest in almost three months.

The highest price for self-serve regular gasoline was $2.59 a gallon in Honolulu. The lowest was in Salt Lake City at $2.03.

Internet movie downloads on offer

John Malone's cable-TV movie channel is launching a download-subscription program at $9.99 per month for movies and concerts.

Subscribers to a new Vongo service also will be able to get pay-per-view movies and watch a live feed of programming on their broadband-connected Windows-based PCs, laptops and portable devices running Microsoft's Windows Media Center software.

"It's kind of iTunes for movies," said analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group.

Company will jump into TV business

Canon will expand into the flat-panel television business, President Fujio Mitarai said.

The company will begin selling a flat-panel TV using SED technology as early as spring, Mitarai said at an electronics-industry gathering last week in Tokyo.

The new televisions will use surface-conduction electron- emitter displays, a panel technology Canon is co-developing with Toshiba.

The panels generate clearer pictures and consume less power than plasma and liquid crystal panels.

Tokyo-based Canon expects its total 2006 sales will gain between 8 and 10 percent.

Compiled from Bloomberg, The Associated Press and Knight Ridder Newspapers